


The Details are Muddy, Pointless, and Quite Frankly Hilarious

by Smudgen73



Category: Tales To Be Told - The Mechanisms (Album), The Mechanisms (Band)
Genre: Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Gun Violence, Hurt No Comfort, I'm so sorry, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Temporary Character Death, Tim/Bertie is kind of implied??? But not explicit at all
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-17
Updated: 2021-01-17
Packaged: 2021-03-15 00:21:12
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,608
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28804212
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Smudgen73/pseuds/Smudgen73
Summary: In which Bertie lives and absolutely does not forgive the mechs when he finds out Jonny and Tim are still alive and left him behind.
Comments: 12
Kudos: 39





	The Details are Muddy, Pointless, and Quite Frankly Hilarious

**Author's Note:**

> *Scuttles out of the bushes and drops this in front of you*
> 
> Do I even need to mention what the title is from? If you don't know, get out /lh /j
> 
> Disclaimer that I wrote this very late at night in a very tired state so if this is bad, I'm sorry.
> 
> This work was inspired by stimtoysoldier's (find them on Tumblr!!) villain!Bertie stuff. This turned out a lot less villainous than I expected, plus I'd originally planned to do hurt/comfort but whatever this just sorta spiraled. Anyway.
> 
> I'm deeply sorry for the pain I'll probably cause you all, but you can't sue me for emotional damages. It's right in my papers.
> 
> The little "---"s indicate a timeskip or a change in perspective because I'm a trash woman who doesn't want to break this up into chapters but also doesn't know how to do this otherwise.
> 
> Enjoy!

Bertie jolts awake with a yelp, and suddenly there are people at his side in an instant. He flinches back, too frightened and confused to take in his environment at the moment. The only thing he can really process is that the lights are too bright and someone keeps trying to place their arm on his shoulder and get him to look at them.

"Don't _touch_ me!" he snarls, and they withdraw, waiting for him to calm down. Bertie realizes just how hoarse his voice is.

After a few more minutes of being curled up on what he now sees is a small cot, he looks up and asks where he is.

There are four people, and together they explain that they're simply a small, traveling group of friends who found Bertie lying, nearly dead on a foreign battlefield while they were passing through. So they picked him up and took him onto their ship. He's been asleep for three days, according to them.

He just nods along to what they're saying, before it hits him. "Tim." Bertie sits up. "Where's Tim?" He looks between the confused and pitying faces of the others, who just shake their heads.

"We don't know of a Tim," one of them says. "Whoever he is, he isn't here."

Bertie sinks back into the cot and avoids their gazes. Tim is gone. Tim is dead. The only other conclusion he can come to is that Tim left Bertie on the battlefield to die, and he doesn't want to think about that yet.

Everyone else files out to give Bertie some space, which is the last thing he wants right now. He wants to be next to Tim, and– Hell, he'd take the war over this in a heartbeat if it meant Tim would still be here.

Bertie falls asleep, and maybe he's crying. He doesn't really know, but at the very least he's shaking as he drifts back into oblivion.

\---

He's sitting at a bar when it happens. An old, run-down place. Bertie's since left the crew that rescued him –on good terms– and gotten a small ship of his own, and now he just wanders between planets without purpose. Occasionally he'll stop at places like this. It's rather quiet tonight, but apparently that won't be lasting long (according to the bartender, anyway) as there is a band playing in a bit.

So Bertie starts another drink and watches the stage lazily, waiting for the music to start.

Eventually, it does. Several people begin to file onto the cramped little stage, and he's not very surprised at first. There's one person who appears to have _wings,_ which is a little unconventional, and–

Tim. Tim is stepping onto the stage, making last-minute adjustments to his guitar, and looking over to Jonny.

And Bertie is frozen as they start to play. The music is beautiful, as he's always known Jonny and Tim's songs to be. He just watches them. Neither Tim nor Jonny seem to have noticed him yet, and neither has the strange thing that calls itself the Toy Soldier.

He's struck by just how much he missed them, and just how angry he is. They're here, which means they left him alone. Rage boils up inside Bertie and he shifts his gaze to lock eyes with Tim, who falters and stops. Bertie stares back, keeping his face devoid of emotion.

Jonny notices Tim's hesitation and follows where he's looking. By now, the music has halted and after a moment that is both too long and too short, Tim bolts off the stage and towards Bertie, pulling him up out of his chair and spinning him around. Bertie jerks back and the smile on Tim's face vanishes as quickly as it appeared.

"Oh, god, I–" Tim starts. Bertie cuts him off, staring up at him.

"Don't even fucking try it." he spits. "You left me there. I would've been dead if I hadn't been so lucky." He shoves Tim back, who stumbles back into another table, too stunned to resist. " _Fuck you_." Bertie says with a sneer. He picks up his drink and leaves the bar, not sparing Tim so much as a backward glance.

\---

Jonny, who's been standing in silence, too surprised to do anything else, finally hops off the stage and walks over to Tim.

"Are you okay?" he asks, quietly so that only Tim will hear. If the crew finds out what he's saying, he'll never hear the end of it, but Tim looks awful. Tim just nods numbly, and Jonny mutters a few curses before saying louder, "Sit down." Tim doesn't even snark back. He sits down at the table Bertie has just left, and stares down at it.

By now, the other Mechanisms have moved off the stage and towards the two of them.

"Who was _that_?" Brian asks, tone a mixture of curiosity and disgust. If someone can make Tim react this way, they can't be good news.

"Bertie," Jonny replies, drawing his gun and moving towards the door. Realization plays out on the crew's faces.

"And what're you doing?" Brian adds.

"Shooting him." he hisses back. "There's no way in Hell he's getting away with the bullshit he just pulled–"

"Jonny." Tim's voice is strained and so, so quiet. "Don't. Can we at least take this somewhere else?"

Nastya nods. "Good idea." She and Brian help Tim up and the others work to get their instruments and gear away. Jonny takes this opportunity to slip out of the bar's back door.

\---

Bertie's done a terrible job of hiding himself. He's curled up in the corner of an alleyway, taking a swig from his drink. Jonny's found him, and points a gun at him, to which Bertie just tilts the bottle towards the First Mate.

"Go ahead and shoot." he says, and takes another drink. Jonny doesn't. Bertie couldn't care less. He's long lost any sense of purpose, and any hope that Tim still might've cared for him was lost when Bertie saw him up on that stage.

"You _bastard_." Jonny starts, moving forward. "How fucking dare you–"

He's cut off by a gunshot as Bertie draws his own gun and fires, terrified of the thought of Jonny firing first despite the fact that _he doesn't even know where to go from here or what to do_ –

The bullet hits Jonny between the eyes. He crumples to the ground and Bertie freezes, panicked. Oh. Oh. He's just killed a man.

" _Christ_ ," Bertie glances out the alley, trying to see if anyone's heard or seen what he's done. He stands shakily. His heart is racing and he can already feel his breaths start to quicken. Where will he go? He's killed people before, but this isn't war and this is someone close to him– at least, someone who'd once been. Through the haze of alcohol and fear he doesn't even notice that there are two people there and at Jonny's side until one of them speaks, and Bertie is stumbling back.

"Ran off without us for two minutes and got himself killed, huh?" The first person, Bertie doesn't recognize, but the second is Tim, who is sitting and cradling Jonny's corpse in his arms. He nods.

"Oh, fuck off." Bertie says in disbelief. How are they being so calm about this? Bertie's just killed Jonny D'Ville, and Tim is sitting here as if he's... waiting for something.

"I believe you're the one who killed our first mate and deeply upset our gunman, so maybe you should fuck off." the first says calmly, sitting down next to Tim.

"Ashes." Tim doesn't say anything else, but the person –Ashes– nods. After a few more moments of silence, there's a string of curse words.

"Bastard killed me." Jonny slurs, and Bertie nearly jumps out of his skin.

"What the Hell!?" he yelps, looking between the three of them for an answer.

"Immortality." Ashes deadpans, and Bertie stutters something about how that's impossible and backs into the wall behind him. Tim looks at Bertie with an expression somewhere between pity and guilt.

Then Ashes is helping Jonny up and he staggers away with them, leaning heavily against them as he recovers.

Bertie is sitting back down, eyes shut, bottle empty and forgotten beside him. Panic and confusion comes over him in waves, and Tim kneels at his side.

"Bertie. Look at me. Please," Tim's begging by now, and he reaches out slowly towards Bertie.

Bertie just tilts his head away from Tim's hand. "I was gonna _die_ , Tim. And you left me there." His voice breaks and he doesn't open his eyes.

"I thought you were already dead." Tim whispers.

"I don't fucking care what you thought, you still abandoned me!" Bertie opens his eyes to glare daggers at Tim, who lurches backwards.

"I'm so sorry."

"I don't care."

And then Bertie is standing and firing his gun again. This time, it feels right. And maybe that's partially because he knows Tim will be back, but he doesn't really care.

Bertie's aboard his ship and leaving the planet by the time Tim wakes up.

\---

Tim takes several days to recover, locked up in his quarters on the ship. Sometimes, he'll play a little music or emerge to get a glass of water, but he keeps himself hidden lest the rest of the crew see just how much of a toll this has really taken on him.

\---

Bertie takes several days to let the "Immortality" thing sink in. By the end, he decides he doesn't care. Let Tim run off with his little crew. Bertie has better things to do than dwell on it.


End file.
